The travels of Tim and Megan: British Golf Open, St Andrews

The British Open

Saturday

We had been toying with the idea of going to the British Golf Open for the last couple of years. It just so happened that this year's Open (the 139th British Golf Open) was held at the “home of golf”, St Andrews, so it would have been rude not to! We were lucky enough to secure tickets for the third round on Saturday.

We flew to Edinburgh on Friday night and checked in to Pollock Halls, one of Edinburgh University’s halls of residence, which is now partly used as guest lodgings. Staying in a university hostel felt like travelling back in time (with our little single beds), although with a bit more luxury (such as an en suite) this time around. We were very happy to find such reasonable accommodation in central Edinburgh, given the golf was on, and even more delighted with the fantastic free breakfast on Saturday morning! Every kind of option for cooked and continental breakfast was dished up in the residents’ canteen, including traditional Scottish fare (one poor tourist asked the chef what "that black thing" was, and when he replied "black pudding", she tentatively put one on her plate. We felt a bit bad for not telling her that she was about to eat a giant scab). We filled ourselves up with bacon, eggs, sausages, hash browns, baked beans, toast, orange juice, and probably a few other things we have forgotten to mention and then we rolled down to the train station to begin what turned out to be a very civilized, well run journey to the home of golf.

We spent the one hour train journey from Edinburgh to a town called Leuchars talking to a Detroit native who was commencing a golf holiday with some buddies. Tim performed his usual magic of bonding with someone in seconds over shared sporting knowledge (in this case golf and baseball), and we met with great approval after informing our new friend that not only had we been to a baseball game but it was Yankees v Red Sox at Yankee Stadium and yes, we had had a hot dog, and yes, we had had a beer and yes, we had even had Cracker Jacks! We think this means we’re now US citizens. Score!

On arrival in Leuchars, we all boarded double-decker buses and drove a further 5-10 minutes to the hallowed turf of St Andrews. We excitedly jumped off the bus and joined the queue to enter, only to hear that no cameras were allowed on the course. Disaster! So, good blog readers and sports fans, sadly we have no photos to share with you of our Open adventure, other than a rather unexciting one of Tim at the ticket gates. Sigh. However, we have pinched a few off the old interweb, so use your imagination and pretend those were our photos! Slightly depressed, we left our camera behind and entered “tent village” – the epicentre of food, merchandise and general merriment at the Open. We immediately perked up! After acquiring some souvenirs, and seeing Nick Faldo signing autographs (want a photo with him? Oh no wait, you can’t), we finally stepped out on the course.

The British Open is held on one of nine links golf courses spread around England and Scotland on a rotating basis each year. Some courses are used more often than others. St Andrews, for example, hosts the Open every five years, while other courses may only host the event once every 10-12 years. Much like scoring a century at Lord's, winning the Open at St Andrews is the pinnacle of any golf player's career. Tiger Woods won the previous two Opens at St Andrews in 2000 and 2005. No player had ever won three Opens at St Andrews. So Tiger had the opportunity of making more history!

St Andrews is the oldest and most famous golf course in the world. We don't know for sure when golf was first played on the site of St Andrews. The earliest written evidence suggests golf was played there in 1552, however it may have been much earlier than that. The golf course is built right in the town of St Andrews, so one end of the course has beautiful old stone buildings running along the edge of the fairway, providing a lot of character. Then the course runs along a long, narrow stretch of land away from the town towards St Andrews Bay. Being a links course, there are no trees. Many of the fairways are wide and open, meaning that the difficulty element of playing the course comes from the weather. There is a famous old stone bridge in the middle of the 18th fairway that is older even than the course itself! The Swilcan Bridge is only about 10 metres long and spans the Swilcan Creek that runs through the middle of the 1st and 18th fairways. It is at least 700 years old and has become a cultural icon in the sport of golf.

Initially we made our way to the first green/second tee and watched the pairs come through (10 minutes apart). From our spot we could see the players' second shots from mid-way down the first fairway on to the first green and then their subsequent putts. Then we got a very close look at them teeing off on the second hole. We saw about 8-9 pairs come through, including some high profile players like Phil Mickelson, Ian Poulter (who was dressed in a lovely lemon jersey and matching shoes) and Stewart Cink (who won the 2009 British Open). While we watched play from the fine grandstand by the second tee, a very brief but heavy shower passed over us. In unison, everybody in the stand put up umbrellas and waited cheerfully for the rain to cease. Only in Britain! Apart from the odd shower, it was actually surprisingly warm and sunny! We even got some sun/wind burn!!! Insane.

After Phil Mickelson teed off at the second, we left our little grandstand and followed him along the course for the second, third and fourth holes. Our main aim of the day was to see Tiger, so after an hour or so we took ourselves off to get fed and watered so we could be in position before his 3pm tee off. We had delicious fish and chips and a pint of beer for lunch and then positioned ourselves overlooking the third fairway.

Former world number 1, Vijay Singh, was playing just in front of Tiger, so we saw a fair bit of him as well. It was a great moment to see Tiger emerge over a little hill, marching down the fairway, with Kiwi caddy Steve Williams in tow! We spent the rest of the day following Tiger around the course, which got a bit tiresome at times with the large crowds, but on the whole we had a good view most of the time. On a couple of occasions we got extreme close-up views of the man himself, as he marched past us headed for the next tee, etc. Sadly, it was not Tiger’s day, as he struggled to sink his putts and shot +1 for the round. He ended up -3 for the tournament, 13 shots behind winner Louis Oosthuizen.

Back in Edinburgh we headed straight from the train station to a lovely little restaurant on King George IV Bridge, called The Cellar Door. We had a beautiful dinner, including haggis fritters in whisky sauce to share for a starter!!! After a very long day at the golf and, surprisingly, quite a bit of sun and, unsurprisingly, a lot of wind, we were exhausted and we crawled back to the hostel and crashed for the night.

Sunday

Needless to say, we were not so quick out of the blocks on Sunday morning, however we made sure to get to the dining hall before breakfast ended at 10am. We had another fabulous cooked breakfast and then checked out of the hostel. We wandered through Holyrood Park, around the base of the hills with Arthur's Seat at the peak before arriving at Holyrood Palace, at the foot of Edinburgh's famous Royal Mile.

Holyrood Palace is the official Scottish residence of the reigning monarch. There has been an abbey (Holyrood Abbey, wouldn't you know) on the spot since 1128, and the Palace itself has served as the principal residence of the Kings and Queens of Scotland since the 15th century. Queen Elizabeth II spends one week in residence at Holyrood Palace at the beginning of each summer, where she carries out a range of official engagements and ceremonies. She had just left the day before we arrived, which was lucky for us, as Sunday was the first day that the palace was open to the public following her summer visit!

We enjoyed our tour of the palace. The audio guide was very informative and we learned a bit more about the history of monarchs and Scotland, in particular Mary Queen of Scots, who lived in the palace. We also viewed the state rooms, which the Queen entertains guests when in town (quite nice, but slumming it a bit after Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle), the "royal procession" rooms (where plebs back in the day used to pass through before being granted an audience with the King) and the bedchamber, scene of the King's most important political and state meetings. We mulled over the concept of holding business negotiations in our pyjamas, but decided such an environment would make it even more difficult than usual to concentrate...

After a stroll through the ruins of the abbey and a spin through Liz's back yard (perfect BYC material), we were ready for some sustenance. So we trekked up the Royal Mile to an Edinburgh favourite - the Elephant Cafe (where Harry Potter was created as J K Rowling sipped on her coffee). We enjoyed some refreshments while we rested our weary bones and read the paper - perfect Sunday activities. We then wandered down the hill to Grassmarket, one of Edinburgh's pub/bar hot spots, where there was more sitting in the sun and then a quiet, relaxing beverage in the Last Drop pub.

By late afternoon, we got the news that our friends Ju and Case were back in town, so we headed around to their place for a catch up and to meet their 6-month old daughter Izzy - so cute! Then Casey very kindly dropped us off at the airport and we headed south to London town. Awesome weekend - the golf was amazing - a once in a lifetime visit to a golf major tournament; and our relaxing Sunday in Edinburgh was fantastic too.